Cemetery making long overdue repairs

Cedar Hill Memorial Park fixes its leaky mausoleum.

Workers were fixing the roof of the mausoleum at Cedar Hill Memorial Park… (Paul Muschick, THE MORNING…)

November 14, 2012|Paul Muschick | The Watchdog

It wasn't quite divine intervention, but after hearing a little fire and brimstone from the Watchdog, a Lehigh County cemetery has repented and is mending its mausoleum.

Cedar Hill Memorial Park in Hanover Township is fixing the roof of the leaky building, about two months after I wrote about the cemetery ignoring complaints from people who paid to have loved ones interred in the crypts there.

Workers removed the skylights and were doing other work this week.

StoneMor Partners, the Philadelphia-area company that owns the cemetery, confirmed it is making repairs. I couldn't get more details because once again, the company official I was told I must talk to did not return my call.

A few people who said they'd asked Cedar Hill to make repairs sooner so they didn't have to sidestep puddles told me this week they doubt anything would have been fixed if they hadn't spoken up and if the Watchdog hadn't written about the problem.

"My thoughts go out to all the loved ones that have parents, husbands, grandparents, even children at the cemetery, that it was let go so long," Nancy Ferraro of Bethlehem said in an email. "I really do think if it was not for me contacting you, they would never of done anything to the mausoleum."

Ferraro's husband and her parents are buried in the mausoleum, and she tries to visit weekly. In addition to the water problems, she told me she feared black marks on a wall were mold. She said temperature extremes inside made visiting uncomfortable.

She said she'd been asking Cedar Hill to address the issues for two years.

Not long after Ferraro contacted me, Richard Fenstermaker of Catasauqua spoke up, too. His wife is buried in the mausoleum and he said he'd complained about its condition repeatedly. Like Ferraro, his prayer for relief wasn't answered.

After hearing from them, I visited the mausoleum a few times in August and September. I saw puddles and water marks. A section of the wall near the front door was missing some of its plaster. A piece of the frame was hanging off the rear doors. Cracks in the floor had been patched.

Clearly the place needed attention. The roof work is a good start.

Fenstermaker was there Monday paying respects to his wife while workers were hammering away. I won't liken it to the angels singing, but it was a pleasant sound coming from above.

"It's good that finally it's done and it's going to be presentable," Fenstermaker said. "Now, they're going full force."

After I wrote about the mausoleum in late September, I heard from a few other people with similar complaints, including Louise Parisi.

Parisi, who used to live in Allentown and now lives in North Carolina, filed a complaint with the Pennsylvania attorney general's office this month, asking for repairs and an accounting of Cedar Hill's perpetual care fund that is required by law. Her husband is buried in the mausoleum.

"This affects all of us who have placed our loved ones to rest in this memorial park," Parisi wrote in her complaint. "The personnel have not responded to our complaints, and ignored repairs in the early stages."

State law requires cemeteries to put money aside for perpetual care every time they sell a grave or crypt, with some exemptions for church graveyards. Cemeteries must file regular reports with the Pennsylvania Real Estate Commission.

Commission records show grave and crypt sales generated about $70,000 for Cedar Hill's perpetual care account from 2008 to 2011. The withdrawals from the fund were more than twice that amount, about $182,000. The reports don't say what the money was spent on, other than that some went to taxes.

As I noted in a second column on Cedar Hill Memorial Park last month, that's a flaw in the law. If the goal is to assure people that cemeteries are maintaining their grounds, the reports cemeteries are required to file also should explain how the money was spent.

State Rep. Ronald Waters, a Philadelphia Democrat, wanted to amend the law to require that, but his bill was buried in committee and lawmakers abandoned Harrisburg for the year without considering it. That means it's dead and will have to be resurrected in the next legislative session if he wants to pursue it.

After writing about Cedar Hill, I heard complaints about the conditions at a few other Lehigh Valley cemeteries. I'll be keeping an eye on them, as well as on Cedar Hill. I'll consider the roof work a sign that the cemetery is committed to making its mausoleum a place where grieving visitors can feel comfortable.

"I can't thank you enough for what you have done," Ferraro told me. "Maybe now all our loved ones can rest in peace."

The Watchdog is published Thursdays and Sundays. Contact me by email at watchdog@mcall.com, by phone at 610-841-2364 (ADOG), by fax at 610-820-6693, or by mail at The Morning Call, 101 N. Sixth St., Allentown, PA, 18101. Follow me on Twitter at mcwatchdog and on Facebook at Morning Call Watchdog.